Movies
I completely forgot where I saw the title of this movie and what made me put in in my list, but in the list it was, and so I obtained a copy and now got around to watching it.
It’s a very old-fashioned romantic comedy about a thirty something Jewish bookstore worker, and the sort of love triangle she gets involved with.
Since time is, as the kids say, a flat circle, the themes seem to be relevant again in 2024. Although the original has a somewhat conservative bent, the lessons the protagonist learns about chasing the high status man (perceived or real) over the lower status one vis a vis her long term happiness are still a prevailing worry in our era. Some anticipate that, if the current cultural norms are not corrected, could become a bona fide crisis in the next 5 to 10 years.
As it is, it’s a fairly entertaining watch. The most enjoyable aspects for me are the late 80s American locations and the performances, including David Hyde Pierce in a secondary role.
Kamen Rider movies aren’t exactly the pinnacle of cinema but from my limited experience, you can usually count on them being a good time.
Perhaps one of the most enjoyable things about them are the weird situations and character interactions that sound completely alien to anyone who has interacted with real human beings. What I’m talking about goes beyond “lol, Japanese shows are wacky!” into truly baffling scenes and character motivations and reactions.
It is one of the longest running tokusatsu shows in Japan, so of course there is some wacky show shenanigans for good measure, but Kamen Rider hits different.
Watching this truly feels like a throwback to the 90s days when “save the rainforest” was the ecologist slogan du jour.
The story follows Dr. Crane, a female biochemist travelling deep into the Amazon rainforest to locate “eccentric” (read: charismatic misogynist) researcher Dr. Robert Campbell to determine if his research is still worth funding by the pharmaceutical company they work for.
Campbell initially rejects his new assistant, as he requested the aid of specific colleagues to help him in the field. As all the colleagues he mentioned by name are male, the locals, as well as Dr. Crane interpret this as him rejecting her because she’s a woman. This is a character setup for bickering and banter in the initial moments of the movie. You know, for character development.
Anyways, it turns out that Campbell is on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer. A pretty big deal, but a construction company is building a highway that will go through the only patch of land where a rare flower, believed to be the key to the cure, grows.
Even though the movie is set in the Amazon, it was filmed in Mexico and directed by John McTiernan, no doubt picked for his experience shooting other jungle movies like Predator. To his credit, the film looks fantastic.
It’s entertaining and well paced, although the “rainforest in danger” plot strains believability a bit. The worst part is that the clue to the miracle cure is made exceedingly obvious to the viewer, which can make it frustrating when the protagonists, supposedly doctors at the top of their fields fail to realize it for the rest of the movie.
The only thing more disappointing than that is the rather bland American title, Medicine Man, since I’ve always known it by the much cooler Spanish one: Los últimos días del Edén.
I haven’t seen a movie so bad in many, many years. If you check this very site’s archive, you’d see that the last and until now only movie that got 0 stars from me is from the 2018 watched list. That’s a 6-year streak without 0-star films that has been broken early this year.
I certainly wasn’t prepared for this one. Billed as an “unofficial sequel” to the beloved cult classic Streets of Fire, this vulgarity of a movie is one of the most egregious and gratuitous character assassinations and mean-spirited plot retcons I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It’s no exaggeration to say that what Albert Pyun has done to Streets of Fire with this movie makes The Rings of Power look like a benevolent and sincere adaptation.
The movie opens with a heavily filtered view of a desert road, and a girl talking off-screen about purgatory, implying that this is where the story takes place. She then appears to the camera with a green screen background behind her (green screen backgrounds with heavy color filters are an unfortunate stylistic detail of this movie), trying way too hard to sound cool but not quite pulling it off (probably more the writing’s fault than the actress). The presentation seems like something out of a high-school fan movie rather than from a director with decades of experience.
After the crappy intro, presenting Cody, the protagonist of Streets of Fire as this “lost soul”, we get some titles claiming this to still be a rock and roll fable, right after reading that Cody has been regretting the ending events of Streets for 29 years
The entire movie is cheaply shot. When it’s not video-looking shots with cloying color filters slathered on, it’s obvious green screen with tacky looking backgrounds.
Not only the look of the movie is insulting, but the plot and how it treats the actors and characters of the original too. Cody is depicted as a perverted serial killer, as he tortures and toys with a couple of girls stranded in this desert road. The only redeeming aspect to his actions being that the girls are criminals and murderers as well. Not sure how they bamboozled Michael Paré to agree to this script.
Interspersed with this gratuitous torture-porn (and some porn-porn for good measure) are interviews with Cody’s sister Reva. They convinced Deborah Van Valkenburgh to reprise her role again, but she appears almost exclusively in these shitty low-budget interview scenes with a bad camera filter slapped on, that seem more like improvisation than something scripted. The worst kind of improvisation too, one where the DJ interviewing her seems hell-bent on making the actress look bad, by asking the worst possible segues and contradicting her statements. Literally the opposite of what you should do with improv, but instead of being funny in a comedic context, it’s just disrespectful for no reason.
Another subject of interviews is “Ellen Dream”, who is supposed to be the daughter of Ellen Aim from the original, played by some random teen in a band. These segments are a lot less intent on contradicting the actress and seem more scripted, and basicallyrevolve around two topics: how much Cody sucks, and the upcoming concert of this Dream woman.
All that awful setup and complete 180º turn to Cody’s original character culminates in some sappy “redemption” scene when he attends Ellen’s daughter’s concert, where she reprises some songs from the original movie in the style of 2000s emo-rock. And, right before the credits, more titles hastily explain that the police could never pin any of the murders on Cody, so he joined his daughter Ellen on her world tour. All is forgiven, blah blah. Then “Alber Pyun’s 50th movie”, in bold white letters.
What an absolute trash of a production. Literally nothing came out right. It’s more insulting than anything to the legacy of one of the best rock fables in cinema, all for nothing. Complete garbage.
While this movie sells itself as some sort of parody take on an action-spy genre, it ends up being one of those embarrassing pseudo-subversive fantasies that isn’t very funny or interesting in its comedic takes.
The initial premise of the story of a spy thriller novelist interjected with scenes from her books seems fun enough, and then the encounter with the “real world” spy seems like it can lead to a fun comedy film, but after the first main “twist”, the entire thing goes off the rails in a predictable, boring way.
Some of you may find if a fun watch but for the most part I’d avoid this one
Mid-budget post-apocalyptic film produced in South Korea for Netflix.
It’s got an interesting premise, and a decent sense of adventure and plot progression. The action setpieces are fun and engaging.
However the plot isn’t doing anything particularly novel. It’s trying to mix a few tropes to build a consistent but by-the-numbers post-apocalyptic romp.
Nothing to write home about.
Interesting little thriller with a certain genre vibe I won’t spoil. It doesn’t go for any particularly deep commentary or themes, but it does build tension and present a particular survival situation fairly successfully.
The set pieces are well thought out, and the plot moves at a perfect pace. Not much more I can say without spoiling the twists and surprises that are slowly drip-fed to the audience.
It’s an entertaining watch if you want something light and immediately engaging.
David Fincher has been making movies on commission for the big streaming platforms lately. This is another one.
A fairly by-the-numbers assassin revenge plot with some facile social commentary sprinkled in. The production values are good and despite Fincher’s… lacking artistic integrity as of late, it’s not like it’s descended to the depths of, say, a Ridley Scott movie.
Definitely recommended if you like films about killers. It has a lot of neat details, but they don’t have any staying power. It’s almost sad that all this care and effort was put on what’s essentially a direct to Netflix movie (the film went to streaming barely 2 weeks after a limited theatrical release).
I tried to watch this movie earlier, but I stopped mid way before it could engage me. I’m glad I went back to it because it is pretty darn good.
As a plot, it’s basically an international criminal thriller featuring a “black hat” hacker played by Chris Hemsworth, who has to collaborate with the American and Chinese governments in a terrorist case. The actress Tang Wei, from Decision to Leave is also here, albeit with a performance that’s not as impressive as that other film.
The plot, while decently executed is secondary to Michael Mann’s masterful directing and visuals. I was impressed at the use of light all the way throughout the film. Incredible and unique atmosphere conveyed with colored neons at night. More specifically, it feels like a step up from his work in Collateral. You can of couse always tell of Mann’s mastery of night scenes by watching what he did in Miami Vice.
This seemingly simple detail elevates what would be a run of the mill thriller into something of fantastic visual worth.
A semi-fictionalized story taking place after the death of Vincent Van Gogh, the universally recognized post-impressionist painter.
The film uses characters inspired by Van Gogh’s famous portraits to build a plot that explores his life and artistic trajectory, but what makes this movie unique is that the entire feature-length film is done in rotoscoped oil painting emulating Van Gogh’s brush strokes.
Although it uses a combination of live action and CG to build the basis for each shot, the final look required rotoscoping of nearly 67000 frames of animation, all produced in real oil paint.
As a 2017 movie, what makes this approach work unlike, say, the marionette look of Kubo and the Two Strings is that the specific look of oil paint brush strokes couldn’t be quite accurately simulated by CGI alone. In this case, having artists place and animate the brush strokes manually is a sensible approach. And, while they cleverly reduce the need to redraw each frame by focusing only on the parts of the shot that change, it remains an impressive production accomplishment.
As for the plot, it’s perhaps well known that the life story of Van Gogh is both tragic and fascinating. The drama tugs at the heartstrings, but it’s always a nice tale to revisit.
I already liked Dune: Part One a fair bit, but Part Two surpasses it in every way.
The jokey bits are toned down, and the setpieces are pure Villeneuve visual goodness. Some scenes like the arena duel in the Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime, filmed in the infrared spectrum, are downright inspired.
The spectacle is there. Amazing artillery strikes, tense battles and duels… they all serve to pace the storytelling and plot development that happens in between.
Although I am familiar with the story of Dune, I haven’t read the original novel. I am, however, quite pleased with the way this movie was carried.
Continuing the boring trend of churning out more “legacy sequels”, we have yet another one for the Ghostbusters saga.
This one is a considerable step down from Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and it feels like a shameless franchise movie rather than something made with actual care. It’s a reference-fest. Not completely gratuitous, but feels hollow compared to the fresh approach of the previous entry in the series.
The plot itself is also a lot less interesting. And the vibe doesn’t fully gel with what classic Ghostbusters was. Mckenna Grace is still fine here, but I’d say that her role is diminished from the previous entry too.
A big disappointment and easy skip. Watch Afterlife instead if you haven’t.
Not to be confused with Voyagers! from 1982. This is a pretty bland and by the numbers young adult science fiction-themed Lord of the Flies pastiche.
The Earth is in danger, so a Generation ship is crewed with a group of colonists trained from birth for the voyage towards an habitable planet. In a silly move, one of the adult leads of the project on Earth decides to go against all the rules that they set up and go with the kids in the ship, as a “mentor”.
Oddly and unrealistically enough, it’s the loss of this mentor character, played by Colin Farrell, what causes the makeshift society of the ship to collapse essentially overnight.
Very predictable romp who doesn’t develop any of its trite themes in any novel or interesting way. Not particularly interesting visually or by its performances. Easy skip.
Pure pulp Video store 80s B-grade movie featuring disgraced old star Charlie Sheen.
An unapologetic revenge fantasy movie with cool cars that, much like The Lost Boys, takes place in an idyllic, sunny, small American town with an oddly high amount of murders per year. This is due to Packard’s gang operating in the area. They specialize in bullying guys and taking their cars in illegal races.
One day, a mysterious rider in black arrives into town. Driving a futuristic car that leaves everyone baffled. The Packard gang members all duel him to a race and die, and every time one does, one of the braces in the rider’s armor disappears.
The movie looks good. It has that 80s sunny look by day, pink neon by night vibe. The characters are absurdly cartoonish, especially Packard, which is ridiculously evil for a two-bit gang lord.
Even though it’s been showcased in some bad movie lists, there are far worse things to watch out there. This one is at least fun.
If I hadn’t watched Road to Hell earlier, This movie would be in the top spot for the most hilariously obnoxious destruction of character and franchise I’ve seen this year so far.
This is the last of the Highlander movies, which semingly promises to be a duet show with both Connor MacLeod, (good old Christopher Lambert from the other canonical movies) and Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul, from the TV show), but early on we have some bizarre character contrivance where Connor decides to sequester himself from “the game” by going to the headquarters of some bizarre secret society no one had ever heard of before, to be put in suspended animation.
If you know the premise of Highlander, where all the immortals are drawn to kill each other until only one remains, you probably are thinking that putting a bunch of them in the same chamber, restrained and defenseless, is an absolutely terrible idea, but that’s what Connor does.
And that’s of course what the villain (played by Bruce Payne of the awful first D&D movie) exploits to gain a ton of power very quickly.
Connor magically survives, though, because he has to have some plot armor in order to deliver a weird “passing of the torch” speech for Duncan.
Very lame stuff, but weirdly entertaining, even if infuriating in how it treats the movie lore vs the TV one.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge)
Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg, 2017
Even though the fifth and, so far, final PotC movie has the worst reviews of them all, I kind of enjoyed a little bit better than On Stranger Tides.
Sure, the jokes are asinine, the plot holes and setpieces are absurd, and the attempts at making the lore relevant to the characters of the classic trilogy is pretty pathetic, but at least they bothered to add interesting characters this time. The new faces almost give you the feel that you are in for an exciting adventure, for a little bit of runtime, until the reality of the movie crushes all those expectations.
Criticism aside, the villain played by Javier Bardem has a good character concept, and the CGI is pretty good as well. Even though Bardem plays the character as if he was some barriobajero from Madrid rather than the admiral of a Spanish fleet, you can tell he had fun in the process.
I have been reluctant to watch any of the post Gore Verbinski Pirates movies, and with good reason.
Each one has worse reviews than the last, and on top of that I’m not particularly fond of Penélope Cruz, Spain’s most international mentally-challenged actress.
This might be the worst movie in the entire franchise overall. The production values are OK, although they never really approach anything seen in the previous two movies. The setpieces are similarly boring in comparison. Casting aside, the lack of a “straight man” counterpart to Jack Sparrow’s character is felt throughout. Orlando Bloom’s character isn’t present for this one.
There is a sort of substitute character, the priest Philip, involved in some side-plot with some sirens (part of the movie’s McGuffin), but his role is rather bland.
While having Blackbeard as the villain is a good idea, and Ian McShane on the role is perhaps the only sane casting decision for the main characters, he’s not given any chance to shine from the script.